


Golden Appetite

by Haecceity



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Compliant, Cara centric, Dragons, F/F, F/M, Interspecies Relationship(s), minor Bloodplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-24
Updated: 2014-06-24
Packaged: 2018-02-06 00:38:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1837999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haecceity/pseuds/Haecceity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cara is a dragon of the species featured in Seanan McGuire's Incryptid series</p>
            </blockquote>





	Golden Appetite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hrhrionastar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/gifts).



Dragons kidnapped princesses. Or rather that had to be the case. After all, no dragon slayer had gone into a dragon’s nest and not found women. Or at least the ones who came back out always found women. Most didn’t come back. They had to be princesses. Their hair was shiny and free of tangles, their skin showed no evidence of being exposed to too much sun or of pimples or the other imperfections that plagued women who labored in the open or by candlelight. (Only, there were far more princesses found than kingdoms missing princesses.)

Always there was gold. Great, gleaming stacks and piles of yellow metal reflecting back the fires inevitably raging in the cavern. (The women never seemed to suffer from smoke inhalation or burns during these skirmishes.)

These were the things Glen Mason knew when he found the dragon nest. It wasn’t a true nest. Stowcroft lacked deep caverns to pile gold in. (Rumor was the Galacians were putting up a fight and dragons were shifting toward D’Hara. Rumor also speculated on whether that was by design.) This was a clearing of collapsed trees, their heartwood splintered, yellow, and still dripping sap. A large divot was scooped out in the middle, long claw marks gouged into the dirt. It was full of the shining bits of eggshell; blue and green and yellow like flowers and jewels glistening in the sunlight. And a baby girl waving her fists and feet.

On some level he had to know; a healthy infant surrounded by broken eggshell. But he chose not to. He chose to take her to the farm where he lived with his wife and toddler. They announced to little Grace that now she had the baby sister she’d asked for on Creatormas.

They named her Cara.

Cara was a timid child, sickly as a little one. She was terrified of the dark until she was seven, had the sniffles almost constantly, and trouble keeping food down. What unnerved Ella Mason were the times she found Cara standing stock still when she was supposed to be pulling weeds. The girl’s jewel bright eyes would be fixed on the sky.

“The dragons are gone,” Ella would say soothingly. “You don’t have to be afraid.” She would place a hand on her daughter’s shoulder, trying to ground her in the real world.

With those beautiful eyes turned toward her Cara said one time, “They’ll come back,” and Ella let her stare at the sky after that.

Most people saw the kind, gentle girl who feared rats and could barely stand the sight of blood. Nathair Cranton saw something else. She saw the way Cara’s eyes glinted when one of her classmates took something she thought was hers. She saw the way Cara preened when she received praise she’d felt she earned and her indifference to praise she felt she hadn’t earned. She saw a fierceness held back by fear.

Nathair Cranton took the girl under her wing. She was never quite sure why she didn’t take Dahlia too. Something felt off. It might make Cara soft to think she could rely on someone else. In due time, she took Glen Mason too and Cara proved what Nathair had known all along: Cara had a heart for vengeance.

Ella Mason died a handful of years later and Grace always said it was grief. She wasn’t sure Silas would want to marry her if he knew that her mother spent the last remaining years of her life screaming in the middle of the night about Cara. Twisted nightmares of Cara with beautiful, perfect hair and beautiful, perfect eyes stretching her beautiful, perfect mouth wide to show her gleaming teeth as she tore Glen Mason’s heart from his chest and ate it raw spilled from Ella’s lips with increasing desperation as time went by. Silas wanted to have children and such madness sometimes ran in bloodlines.

Dahlia’s parents, who had tried for over twenty years to unsuccessfully have a child, withdrew from the Mason family. People assumed the loss of Dahlia’s playmate made them nervous the Mord’Sith were coming for her next. They became increasingly reclusive over the years. So much so that no one quite knew when Dahlia ran away. “She went to find gold,” was all her parents would say.

Gold called to Cara too. She had caught a glimpse of it once or twice in Stowcroft and her gut clenched with a painful yearning. A yearning she’d been relieved to see reflected in Dahlia’s eyes. As a lowly apprentice, Cara saw little gold but she could smell it. She still had trouble keeping food down but her sniffles faded. 

The first time she was allowed to serve the Mord’Sith personally, Cara discovered the Mistress of her temple used a cup rimmed in pure gold. After the meal, taking it down to kitchen for cleaning, Cara gently put the metal in her mouth and felt something uncurling in her chest.

Her first lesson as a Mord’Sith had been to learn that she was a killer. This second lesson was personal. It was not the avarice the disciples of the Creator droned on about that drove her to desire gold. It wasn’t greed or anything superficial like vanity. She _needed_ gold. If she became a leader of Mord’Sith she could have gold plates and gold cutlery and gold jewelry. She didn’t need to wear it or use it, _having_ it… oh, having it would be like releasing a burden.

As with adolescents everywhere, novice Mord’Sith played games. Being Mord’Sith, these were games of skill. The full Mord’Sith observed these games. The better Cara performed, the more her duties brought her into contact with gold. The more time she spent able to smell, touch, taste, and gaze upon the precious metal, the stronger Cara became. Her joints ached less and her head felt clearer.

In one game of bluff and toss, Cara won a gold ring from one of her rivals. It wasn’t pure by any means but it was gold and it was hers. She spent over an hour admiring its shine, sniffing it, and listening to its chime against stone before she licked it. Almost at once she put it in her mouth and swallowed. The relief was almost unbearable. Her rival tried to take the ring back later but Cara just laughed and thrashed her with a speed and precision she’d never had before.

Cara had had her red leathers for just over six months the first time she visited Darken Rahl’s bed. He took things at his own pace, and Cara had enough time to observe him closely. He was average height for a man, broad-shouldered, and muscular. She felt the bond between him and her Agiel tugging at her so strongly she almost didn’t notice the faint hint of a scent she had never experienced before but filled her with a longing unbecoming a Mord’Sith. It wasn’t until their third or fourth time together that she reconciled herself to the fact that the scent was him and not a cologne. 

It was his blood.

She bit him and savored the feeling in her mouth as he gripped her hair and pulled her off him. His blue eyes searched her face as she gave him a lazy smile. His pupils flared dark and he let out a shaky breath, smelling to Cara like a home she’d never had.

He favored her less and more over the years she served him. Later, when her nature was made clear to her, she learned that she had not borne his child. She could not bear his children, whatever his blood said. That she had wanted to had been enough. Out of kindness or sadism or a delight in having the upper hand, he had made her believe she’d borne him a son. A boy to be raised by the Dragon Corps. In fact, she’d astounded and alarmed him by laying an egg that later hatched into a girl with honey-blonde hair, brilliant green eyes, and bone structure that matched Cara’s in every particular.

Darken Rahl attempted to recreate the experiment many times but Cara had no interest in further children. At first he was disappointed in what appeared to be a normal, healthy infant. Then rebels attacked the fortress she was being raised in. The place was razed to the ground when something set off the supply of Dragons’ Breath in the keep. The relief troops found no one left but a toddler playing happily among the ashes near the melted heap of gold that had been waiting for the paymaster to dole it out.

The Seeker’s blood held the same scent as Darken Rahl’s. In moments when she felt like her world was skidding into a spiral she had no hope of pulling out of, Cara stood close and just barely downwind of him and breathed deep.

***

When the dragon came from the sky and plucked Richard up with mighty talons, Cara felt a sensation much like the first time she’d eaten gold. Darken Rahl and the Seeker had a thread of the scent, the dragon had ballroom full of cloth.

Grabbing her Agiels, Cara rushed after him. The pain coursed through her hands in silvery shivers that made her grit her teeth in something almost like a smile.

“You! Wizard.” The dragon’s voice boomed as he turned and landed, the blast of air knocking leaves from trees over five hundred feet away. “You unlocked the Old Blood.”

“I did,” Zedd said shakily. 

“The gift was abused. We took it back.”

“Richard has given up his claim to the magic.” Zedd said more steadily, keeping his hands hidden behind Cara.

“Zedd, what’s happening?” Kahlan whispered urgently.

“It was a gift we gave the House of Rahl,” the dragon boomed. “Lord Rahl told us of a coming war. A war against all magic. We are creatures of magic, our survival requires its presence in the world. He sought to forge weapons for that war and for that he needed more power.” A wisp of smoke trailed up from one nostril as he lashed his tail. “One of our Elders was dying. We let him drink of the heartblood of an ancient and powerful one of our kind.”

“I unbound Panis Rahl’s magic. The dragons are against that.” Zedd said softly, sorrow creating lines on his forehead and around his eyes.

Cara realized she’d lowered her Agiels and was drifting forward one footfall at a time.

“Humans do not carry purity of purpose as dragons do. The power ran in the veins of his descendants and they did not share his purpose.” He preened his bronze scales in the sun as Cara and Richard made eye contact.

“What do you plan to do with Richard?” Cara asked.

“I require the wizard to bind the magic once again. It is too dangerous.”

“I told you he gave away his claim,” Zedd repeated. “He’s no threat to you unless you force him to act now.”

“The Witch Woman warned us of his son.” A woman said, stepping out the trees to Cara’s left. She was tall and well built. Her glossy dark hair shone and her blue eyes were strangely familiar.

“The blood of the Confessors must not mingle with our blood. The only result would be tragedy.” The dragon said, and Cara knew men well enough to recognize the pain in his voice. 

She straightened abruptly. Even sixty feet long, covered in scales, and full of fire, he was still a man. Her chest felt tight. “If you harm him, you will answer to me.” As she spoke the direction of the wind shifted and he blinked golden eyes the length of a man’s arm at her.

“Is it possible?” he murmured. “Dahlia, do you-”

“Dahlia?” Cara looked at the woman with fresh eyes and a warmth burst inside her. “It’s Cara. We grew up together.”

Dahlia stepped closer, her stride swinging loosely. She wore brown leather armor and had a bow slung across her back. Her dark hair was plaited in two simple braids that Cara’s hands itched to touch. “Our fathers were good friends,” Dahlia said shyly. “This is mine.” She waved a hand at the dragon.

“Get him to release Richard,” Kahlan ordered.

“You are allied with these, young one?” Dahlia’s father asked.

“Yes,” Cara said clearly and proudly. The Mother Confessor she should hate but didn’t, the First Wizard who irritated her and reminded her of who she was trying to become, the Seeker who was her Lord Rahl; they were hers.

“I apologize,” he said, releasing Richard. “Had I known of your claim, I would have spoken with you directly.”

“What just happened?” Kahlan asked.

Dahlia gave her a tooth-edged smile that made Cara’s heart leap.

“I do not want the Seeker or the wizard harmed.” Cara stated clearly.

“I just wanted their attention,” Dahlia’s father grumbled.

Kahlan gave Cara and Dahlia an odd look before rushing over to Richard, pushing him to agree. Nicholas Rahl’s shadow cooled the afternoon sunlight.

“Come live with us,” Dahlia urged Cara. “It’s amazing. We have enough gold and we have each other.”

Cara listened while Dahlia described caverns and riding on dragons and living with women who understood the hungers. She described living with mostly women and a couple of the large, scaled males. Women and men of their kind who were centuries old and knew arts of fighting, music, and magic-

“Young one, do not get ahead of yourself.” Her father broke in gently. “Your father died attempting to retrieve your clutch. Your mother thought you lost.”

Thinking of Ella Mason touching her shoulder and Nathair Cranton’s tortured Confession of breaking her heart, Cara paused. 

“These people are yours. We understand purpose.” Dahlia’s father said. “I will tell your mother you live and when your purpose here is done, you have a home with us.”

Cara took Dahlia’s gloved hand in her own and kissed it, watching Dahlia’s face. 

“I’ve been hoping we’d find you.” Dahlia said. “When I found them I knew…” She took a deep breath. “You will outlive them by centuries.”

“Then I should spend as much time with them as I can.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is inspired by hrhrionastar's prompt about Cara slaying a dragon and Darken or Richard being a damsel in distress. This has much less dragon slaying than the prompt warrants.


End file.
